Free Bloody London by Reggie Nadelson

death; he didn’t cut the cord; I didn’t ask. I wanted on this case.
    â€œI heard you, Sonny,” I said into the phone for the fourth time, and looked back up at the TV set.
    â€œArtie Cohen?”
    I turned around. Lulu Fine held out her hand and said, “Nice to meet you. You’re the guy on the Middlemarch thing?”
    I thought of telling her I was a reporter on the story, but I hate a ruse and it didn’t matter. She was dying to unload. Lulu, who told me her real name was Larraine but she detested it, led me to a booth, ordered Campari and orange juice, put a bunch of quarters into the juke box on the wall, played some Beatles tunes. She was fortyish and small. She had a pelt of short, honey-blonde hair and wore creamy leather pants. Happy to talk.
    â€œNew York sucks,” she said. “Who’d put up with this kind of housing crap anywhere else?” Her accentwas part Brit, part New York. None of the pretensions of Mrs Pascoe’s Brit-Lite. Lulu Fine was a cute woman.
    â€œDo you want anything?” I said. The menu, which included fish and chips and shepherd’s pie, was scratched on a blackboard.
    She shook her head. “A drink’s perfect. I hope you don’t mind, I come here a lot. It’s where us down-market Brits like to hang out, you know? Feel at home, at least after I gave up wanting to be someone else. I was down at the Mercer already at lunch, I had enough of the horseshit high life for one day.”
    I said, “You’re from England.”
    She nodded. “Yeah, just outside London. Essex, that mean anything to you?”
    I shook my head. “Been here long?”
    â€œChrist, Artie – it’s Artie, right? – almost ten years. My dad moved his firm over here. Gary was already running it, we came on over. I married Gary, must be twenty-five years now. I was nineteen, can you believe it? I still get homesick.”
    Lulu Fine ordered another drink. “I was vain. And stupid. You want to know about the Middlemarch, right? I tried to get an apartment in the Middlemarch last year. I was married then. I thought it would please Gary, him so anxious about moving up. He said it. He actually said it. Moving up, babe. Christ, I can see how pathetic we were then. I stepped into it like a blind man strolls into dogshit, and I took poor Gary with me. Poor bastard.”
    She leaned across the table. “Should I tell you my story?” Lulu asked, and I said “Yeah, go on, tell me.”
    *
    Eight-thirty, a quiet winter night, snow melting, Lulu Fine remembered it very precise, she said. Every detail: the air heavy, wet, dark, dog-end of winter.
    They left their rental apartment on Third Avenue, and getting into Gary’s new Mercedes, racing green, tan leather interior, Lulu looked back at the building – the little beige bricks, the rows of sooty balconies, the predictable middle-class dullness. Finally they were leaving it behind.
    Gary wanted somewhere better more than anything in the world and Lulu was helping him get it. They had the money now. She’d found it, the dream apartment.
    She put her arm around the back of Gary’s seat and gave him a little squeeze because he looked good; she made him get a haircut, he wore his plain dark-blue Armani suit and the black Gucci loafers.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou look really nice, Gar,” she said, and he said, “Thanks, love.” He was really anxious. “You think it will be OK?”
    Lulu said, “Sure it will. We have the money. We’re fine.”
    He’d done great too, even if it’s her father’s business; it was a bonanza couple years for the fur business and Gary on the cutting edge, excuse the pun. He saw fur would make a comeback and he was in there, meeting the fashion babes, talking up the product, organizing junkets to Norway so the young design kids could see how you worked fur.
    The whole ride over to the building by